I?m envious, not only at the immense skill of the players who create these …

Share this story

If you’re like me, you like to take your time with games. You make sure you find every hidden item and you backtrack if you missed something even slightly important to the completion of the game. As many of us know, however, there are also those who value speed over detail.

Originally stemming from a Quake site, speeddemosarchive.com is a website dedicated to hosting videos of video game speed runs from games as far back as the NES all the way up through current gen. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this site, but I just happened upon it recently. If you pull up a list of games and completion times for any given console on this site, I think you’ll find it difficult to accept that many of these titles can be completed so quickly.

Just a few of the highlights include a speed run of Silent Hill 2 completed in less than an hour, both castles of Castlevania: SotN in less than 45 minutes, and a full run of Diablo II (through Baal in the LoD expansion pack, even!) clocking in at 1:53:44. I checked the numbers and these are all correct – If you don’t believe me, the proof is in the videos.

It’s a little mind-boggling to think of the practice and dedication it takes to achieve one of these speed runs, as many of these games prove to be immensely challenging even if one is taking his or her own sweet time. Nevertheless, I have to say I’m impressed and even awestruck at the gaming godliness on display in these annals.